Story+1977-02-13+Toronto,+ON

´´I grew up in this small town, was about ten thousand people, it was about 20, 20 miles inland from the coast....and I lived in this, uh, this two-family house on this main street in town....and, uh, my mom, she worked, she was a secretary, she worked downtown in one of the office buildings and my Pop, he was a, he was a guard at the jail for a while and worked in this plastics factory for a while and....sometimes he had some jobs driving trucks but....a lot of times he was just home, home a lot.....and I remember we used to live next door to this gas-station and in the summertime....I had this little roof that was off my room and I used to pull my mattress out through the window and sleep out on the roof at night.....the station used to close up about one o’clock but all night long there’d be these guys, pulling in and pulling out, I don´t know where they was going, just out down the highway towards the beach....I remember ´soon as I got older, ´soon as I hit 16....(?)....I started going to New York City a lot, me and this friend of mine used to get....we used to take some odd jobs down there, we worked downtown for a while, around the Village.... and we used to hang out there till the money ran out or till the cops caught us just lazing around in Port Authority (?) to send back home....and, and my Pop, every night....at nine o’clock every night, he used to.....he used to shut off all the lights in the house.....he’d sit in the kitchen....just drinking beer, smoking a cigarette, my mom, she used to sit in the frontroom with just the TV on....watch TV all night till she fell asleep....woke up to go to work next morning.....and I´d get off that bus coming out from the city....and I´d know that he´d be sitting in that kitchen waiting for me when I got home.....he used to lock up the frontdoor so that me and my sister couldn’t come in ‘round the front, we used to have to go in ‘round the back.....through the kitchen so he´d see what time you came in....if you came in, if you came in early, when he hadn´t been sitting there too long and he hadn´t had too much to drink, it wasn´t, wasn´t too bad but if I´d been gone for a few days or if I came in.....late at night, he´d be sitting there in the dark waiting for me and I´d stand in that driveway and I´d look through the screendoor, I could see the light of his cigarette and I’d slick my hair back real tight so he couldn’t tell how long it was and I’d slip up on the porch and try to make it through the kitchen and he’d wait till I hit about the bottom step....and he´d call me to come in and sit.....sit down with him and talk to him for a while, I remember all the years I was sitting there, he´d be telling me, telling me things, I could always, I could always hear his voice but I could never, I could never see his face ....he’d start off talking about nothing much, how I was doing at school, how things was going.....pretty soon he’d be asking me where I got my money from and what I thought I was doing with myself.....and we’d end up screaming at each other and my mother, she’d end up....she´d always end up running in from the frontroom to pull him off me, try to keep us from fighting with each other.....I’d always end up running out the backdoor screaming, screaming, telling him, telling him he was gonna have to understand....that it was my life and I was gonna do what I wanted to do....”
 * 13.02.77 Toronto, Canada, intro to ´It´s My Life´**

´´ I lost my volume knob !....you can´t lose your knob, fucked up (keeps playing the guitar part)...I´ll be right back.....(Clarence : ´We´d like to announce...Bruce will be right back, don´t go away...the trouble is not in your receiver) There I was !...riding down this dark road, it was about....ten years ago...I was in this old....I remember I was in this....I was in this ´63 Impala, Impala that my old man gave me....after he racked it up into a tree....now ....he said if I could scrape it up off the tree, I could have it.....so, I scraped it off and it was me and Miami and the Big Man, we was riding down this dark road, like, taking these girls home, you know, like, we took ´em out to the movies and we took ´em out to dinner and we say ´Ok, what you girls wanna do now?´, you know, they say ´We wanna go home´...alright, you know, alright....so, we take ´em down this dark road and I turn the headlights out and I turn off all the lights in the car so it was so dark you couldn´t see nothing and we were just getting down this stretch of road....and all of sudden....all of a sudden, from out of the sky came this big flashing light.....(makes a weird sound on the guitar) it was a little bigger than that in truth but that´ll have to do for now....but..... anyway, it sideswiped the Impala, right ? I put my foot on the brake, went skidding off into the swamp, right, and, uh, like, the girls, they was cursing us, screaming at us and stuff, you know, saying we was assholes and stuff ´cause we didn´t know what we were doing, so, like, you know, gimme a break, you know, but it was like.....we looked over in this field and whatever it was that sideswiped us was sitting there in the middle of the swamp and it was all shiny and humming and uh.....had a STP sticker on the side, Chevy spark plugs on the side, it had Hooker headers and, and it said....´Big Daddy Don (?)´, so I said ´Miami, that´s Big Daddy Don (?) over there, man !´ and he said it wasn´t him, right....we check it out, we get out of the car, the girls are cursing at us, we walk through the mud, right, now we´re sort of uptight, you know, ´cause like the car´s all fucked up, the car´s all wrecked up and we´re all muddy but like, uh....so we get over there and like the thing´s just humming and stuff, all of a sudden it opens up, right, the thing opens up, out comes this cat doing this, uh....like, this Michael Renny-impersonation, you know ? And he comes stumbling down there down the, down the ramp and, uh....he says ´Hey, you guys, hey´....he talked just like me, it was funny, you know....he said ´Hey...is this Mars ?´, we said ´No, no, no, man, no, man, you got the wrong block, wrong block, this is´....we, we started laughing and stuff, we said ´This ain´t Mars, man, this is New Jersey´, right, ´What´re you doing here ?´, he says ´This is New Jersey, huh ?´, he says ´Well, tell me how to get to the Turnpike so I can get this thing out of here ?´, right....so we said ´No way, man, you wrecked the car on us, the girls are all pissed off at us, we ain´t going to tell you how to get anyplace´....so....he said ´Ok, we´ll make a deal, make a deal, give you guys one wish and, uh....then you tell me the way to the Turnpike´, we said ´Alright, alright, that sounds pretty good´ so....so, said ´Ok, Miami, what do you want ?´...Miami thought for a long time, Miami said ´I want a blue suit´, boom ! In a second, man, he had a blue suit, that´s where he got the blue suit, I´m telling you....right ? yeah ! it´s like, then said to the Big Man ´Big Man, what do you want ? What´s your wish ?´....Big Man thought a few minutes, consulted with me, we decided ´white suit´, boom ! Gets the white suit ! Big Man´s standing there like that....so, like, now it was my time, I was thinking real slick, I was thinking, like, ´A million bucks´...´My own Laundromat´ ....and let me see.... ´New wheels for my car´, no, no....so finally I said ´Ok, Mr. Spaceman...Mr.Spaceman.... Mr.Spaceman, I wanna be....Mr. Spaceman....my wish is ....I wanna be....I wanna be....I wanna be....a rock and roll star !...."
 * 13.02.77 Toronto, Canada, intro to ´Growin´ Up´**

´´Just me and you, baby...just me and you, girl....and I remember...I remember the way she promised...you said till I got the money, till we got the money, you was never gonna go any-place without me and I remember...I took all the money outta the bank...and you was gonna quit your job, I was gonna quit my job too....well, I remember.…oh, I remember...I remember the night....it was in the basement of St.John´s that you promised we was never gonna go anyplace (?)....I never wanna go anyplace without you....and I remember, remember rain came tumbling down....and then all I remember is that Sunday ....I was down in the corner.... and I was waiting for you....as the rain came tumbling down....I remember I stood, was right at the bus-station...and the buses were pulling in and pulling out....I was standing there, I remember there was a newspaper on my head.... and the rain came tumbling down.... and I was thinking of you and waiting ...and I remembered that you promised....and the rain came tumbling down....and all the while I was standing there, I just remembered that you promised ....and the rains came tumbling down....and then I remembered that you promised...as the rain came tumbling down.... that´s when I knew ....that´s when I knew....and I remembered that you swore to me and that´s when I knew....that´s when I knew....I know no matter what was said....I knew that no matter what was said...and I knew...YOU LIED !....YOU LIED !.... YOU LIED ! ...YOU LIED !...."
 * 13.02.77 Toronto, Canada, middle of ´Backstreets´**

´´This song´s a depressing motherfucker, this next one (giggles) no, it´s terrible, I cry out every night when I play this song, (?) roadguys gotta run out and wipe the tears from my eye, this is uh, I used to go out with this girl and uh, long time ago, a long time ago, right, and uh....like she wrote all this stuff in my yearbook, you know like, she was going like ´You know I´ll always love you forever and you know, I know we´ll always be together, at least my half will´, you know, that kind of, you know, (?) my mother makes me look at it every time, every time I go out West, to teach me a lesson, this girl, she ran off with.... she ran off with this guy that owned this gas-station down along the coast and uh.....I chased her around for about eight months after that, I used to sit in this tree outside her house waiting for her to come out....but uh, a lot of you jokers up in ´em trees (chuckles) I know, I know, it´s true, it´s like, you know, these are like, you know, life´s little tragedies, you know, you gotta sort of....wax philosophical about ´em (chuckles) and you know, you know, that´s, anyway, so wherever she is.....oh, Rosie, come out tonight (chuckles)..... (....) We´ve got a long, long list of luminaries tonight.....so we´re gonna skip ´em, no, no, no, no, beginning at the piano, a man with all the degrees and all the keys, Professor Roy Bittan....play it, Professor....on the guitar, how can I say it ?....producer, composer, artiste, auteur, uh, uh....poet of the soul, master of rock and roll, the man who brought you such great hits as ´I Don´t Wanna Go Home´, ´Sweeter than Honey´, the magnificent Miami Steve Van Zandt.....on the bass guitar, coming to you from Long Branch, New Jersey, Mr.Garry W.Tallent.....on the drums, the Mighty Max.....on the organ, Phantom Dan Federici.....play it, D....in the back....where we keep ´em so they can´t get at you....all the way from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....via the men´s room of the Newark airport.... the Miami Horns....last but not least....king of the whole goddamn world.....master of the motherfucking universe.....Mr.Hollywood....star of stage and screen....(?)....the Big Man, Mr.Clarence Clemons on the saxophone.....”
 * 13.02.77 Toronto, Canada, intro to ´Rosalita´**

//Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi//